Small Talk: We'll Be Right Back

[riley702]

In high school, I was driving down a side street in my little town and straddled what I thought was a bag of trash. As I went over it, little ears popped up. I stopped, walked back and it was two calico kittens, one long-haired and one short-haired. They were absolutely starving. I took them home and named them Frick and Frack. They were such sweethearts.

[ennui]

22 hours ago, bilgistic said:

There are Canadian geese ... I really don't like their attitudes.

"Sorry I was late to work today; I had to wait for geese to cross the street."

I'd wait, too. They're big birds and can be aggressive if provoked.

[theatremouse]

Ugh, fuckin' Canadian geese. They're such assholes. Used to take over my grandma's deck such that she couldn't go outside that way.

Edited October 29, 2016 by theatremouse

[SoSueMe]

23 hours ago, Prevailing Wind said:

And, of course, squirrels prefer the zig-zag approach.

 

Re: Mayo.  I was going to repeat something one of my high school English teachers said about mayonnaise, but I realized I hated him for saying that and I don't want y'all to suffer the same way I did, so I won't repeat it.

I guess it might be a good strategy so far as predators are concerned, not so great for motor vehicles....I nearly hit 3 of them in one short trip the other day. One was within a foot of the other side of the road and pulled a 180 ???!!! It was their lucky day but I swear they seem suicidal.

[Brattinella]

I have seen squirrels wait by the side of the road, and exactly when a car appears, they DASH.  I think they ARE suicidal.

[Prevailing Wind]

I read that they each have a specific "safe" tree, so when they sense danger, the squirrels run for their safe haven, even if it's on the other side of the street.

[Jamoche]

7 hours ago, mmecorday said:

I visited Springfield, Mo., several years ago and I could not get over the number of dead armadillos along the sides of the highways! I had never even seen a living armadillo in the flesh, so this was very upsetting.

This forum should be retitled "Everything from butter to road kill."

Amazingly enough, despite the startle reflex that's precisely the wrong thing to do against cars, the armadillo's range has expanded over the past 150 years - from just the very tips of Texas and Florida to the entire southeast.

I once watched a squirrel run to the very center of the lane and then stop. Alas, while this may have worked for him in the past, this time he was in front of a heavy construction vehicle which had tires all the way across the back axle, no gaps.

[Moose135]

On 10/27/2016 at 10:15 PM, bilgistic said:

There are Canadian geese (I don't care if that's not what they are; that's what we've always called them) that frequent a pond adjacent my apartment complex. After the 20 or so of them get tired of swimming, the geese go walking through the complex about five abreast in the morning when I'm leaving for work. I've had to wait several times for them to verrrrrry slllllllloooooowly cross the road in front of me so I can get on my way. I really don't like their attitudes.

"Sorry I was late to work today; I had to wait for geese to cross the street."

These damned immigrant geese, coming to our country and making life miserable for good, patriotic Americans. We need extreme vetting before letting foreign geese into the country! ;-)

Although, considering what geese can do to an airplane, you're wise to give them a wide berth!

[riley702]

Is that Captain Sully's plane?

[bilgistic]

8 hours ago, mmecorday said:

This forum should be retitled "Everything from butter to road kill."

I like to think I'm practicing my conversation skills for when I'm in the old folks' home.

[Moose135]

1 hour ago, riley702 said:

Is that Captain Sully's plane?

Yes it is.  I was still on Long Island at the time, and went out got some shots the night it went into the river, then I was back out over the next week as they pulled it out of the water and the NTSB began their work.  I have a bunch more pictures here.

[Brattinella]

Spectacular pictures!  Thanks!

[ebk57]

10 hours ago, Moose135 said:

Yes it is.  I was still on Long Island at the time, and went out got some shots the night it went into the river, then I was back out over the next week as they pulled it out of the water and the NTSB began their work.  I have a bunch more pictures here.

Those are fabulous pictures!  You're pretty good at that photography thing!!

[ari333]

I'm enjoying all the animal stories and facts. !

[peacheslatour]

If you like animal stories, here is one of mine:

I remember this one night, many moons ago, a bunch of us had been over at a friends house partying it up. It got late and a few people decided to spend the night. I was sleeping in a recliner in the living room, other people were scattered on the couch, the floor, etc. I woke up when I heard a noise and the front door was slowly opening. This was in a very old house, so the door creaked. I was just frozen, thinking "oh, no, what is it?" And then I saw the outline in the moonlight of what looked like three or four large cats. Of course they were raccoons. They slowly made their way into the living room. By now several people were awake. The raccoons sat up on their haunches and regarded us curiously. The person nearest the kitchen quietly got up and grabbed a loaf of bread. Then, like the silly young morons we were, we proceeded to feed the whole loaf to the raccoons. The friends that lived in the house were plagued with raccoons for the rest of their tenancy.

[ari333]

44 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

If you like animal stories, here is one of mine:

I remember this one night, many moons ago, a bunch of us had been over at a friends house partying it up. It got late and a few people decided to spend the night. I was sleeping in a recliner in the living room, other people were scattered on the couch, the floor, etc. I woke up when I heard a noise and the front door was slowly opening. This was in a very old house, so the door creaked. I was just frozen, thinking "oh, no, what is it?" And then I saw the outline in the moonlight of what looked like three or four large cats. Of course they were raccoons. They slowly made their way into the living room. By now several people were awake. The raccoons sat up on their haunches and regarded us curiously. The person nearest the kitchen quietly got up and grabbed a loaf of bread. Then, like the silly young morons we were, we proceeded to feed the whole loaf to the raccoons. The friends that lived in the house were plagued with raccoons for the rest of their tenancy.

Awww.... more stories please!

There is a squirrel who paces on the bedroom windowsill as if he's guarding his spot. If I don't show up with snacks, he stands on his back legs and taps on the glass with the front paws that look like people hands. And he chatters. the friendly one, not the screaming one. At first he was scared of the tv.Now he sits on the sill and watches tv and eats snacks from my hand  :-) There are other squirrels and birds in the yard and I feed them too.The squirrels interact with humans and run right up to my feet and will take food from my hand if I bend down and hold it out. they stand up and do a little dance. It's pretty cute.  

[ari333]

How did they get the door open? :-)

We had a raccoon on the windowsill, but it was before sunrise. My bf saw it as he left for work.

[peacheslatour]

Lol! We have a squirrel that literally throws himself against the window if we don't hop to it quick enough. 

Here is a squirrel story:

About 5 years ago, I was sitting on the couch, reading and I heard a strange chirping sound. Wondering what kind of a bird would make such a sound, I went outside and looked around. I didn't see anything, so I went back in. This went on all day and finally I tracked down the noise, it was coming from under the lilac tree in the side yard. I parted the Shasta daisies and there, on the ground was a tiny baby squirrel. It was so young it didn't even have it's eyes open yet. I called my husband at work (he works about 4 blocks away)and said he had to come home, there was a dying baby squirrel in the yard. He said to fill up a bucket with water. He thought it was a goner and was going to drown it. Needless to say I did NOT fill a bucket. He came home and went out to look at it. Next thing I knew he came into the house with this tiny baby curled up in his hand, asleep. we got a box and put a towel in it. He took the squirrel to the local emergency Vet, but they were just going to put it to sleep, so he brought it back home and we started calling around to other Vet's. We found one, one town over that runs a rescue. We took it there. Over the course of the next two days, we had four more fall out of the same nest and we dutifully drove them over to the rescue at a rate of every few hours. We figure now we have good squirrel karma.

[ennui]

30 minutes ago, ari333 said:

How did they get the door open? :-)

We had a raccoon on the windowsill, but it was before sunrise. My bf saw it as he left for work.

Raccoons are crafty and smart, but I'd guess the door wasn't closed enough to latch.

Raccoons killed my neighbor's cat. Vicious beasts. There are a couple of packs in my neighborhood, they use the storm drains as their highway. I saw seven one night, and then another two a different night. They scare me.

[peacheslatour]

6 minutes ago, ennui said:

Raccoons are crafty and smart, but I'd guess the door wasn't closed enough to latch.

Raccoons killed my neighbor's cat. Vicious beasts. There are a couple of packs in my neighborhood, they use the storm drains as their highway. I saw seven one night, and then another two a different night. They scare me.

That's exactly right. It was summer and we had the front door slightly ajar. And you are right raccoons are vicious beasts. We had about twenty of them engage in a horrible rumble in the street in front of our house late one night. You wouldn't believe the screaming, growling and shrieking. What a massacre.

[bilgistic]

In my last place, a condo I owned, and my current place, an apartment, every winter, there are either squirrels or birds that nest in the walls/ceiling. I call maintenance and they "can't find anything". You know, getting out a ladder and actually looking might help. I'm afraid that one early morning, the ceiling is going to come down on the cat and me in a whirlwind of feathers, sticks, insulation and bird poop.

2 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

That's exactly right. It was summer and we had the front door slightly ajar. And you are right raccoons are vicious beasts. We had about twenty of them engage in a horrible rumble in the street in front of our house late one night. You wouldn't believe the screaming, growling and shrieking. What a massacre.

I'm picturing West Side Story with raccoons.

[ennui]

3 minutes ago, bilgistic said:

squirrels or birds that nest in the walls/ceiling.

Rats? Rats move inside when it's cold out. I have a lot of squirrels, but they stay in their nests in the trees.

One way to tell is if they are active at night. Squirrels sleep at night, rats are nocturnal.

Edited October 29, 2016 by ennui

[peacheslatour]

30 minutes ago, ennui said:

Rats? Rats move inside when it's cold out. I have a lot of squirrels, but they stay in their nests in the trees.

One way to tell is if they are active at night. Squirrels sleep at night, rats are nocturnal.

Yeah, I hate to break it you bilgistic, but it probably is rats.

[bilgistic]

They squawk, though--by which I mean make bird sounds. They are active pretty much of the time, but only come back when it gets cold, so I think they nest in the wall/ceiling. They've not come back yet this year. It was in the high 80s today. I'm pretty sure they are birds.

There may have been rats at the condo. I could hear repetitive scratching and skittering. My cats would stare at the wall.

[peacheslatour]

I hope they're not starlings. We had some nest in our eaves once and it was a nightmare.

[ari333]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Lol! We have a squirrel that literally throws himself against the window if we don't hop to it quick enough. 

Here is a squirrel story:

About 5 years ago, I was sitting on the couch, reading and I heard a strange chirping sound. Wondering what kind of a bird would make such a sound, I went outside and looked around. I didn't see anything, so I went back in. This went on all day and finally I tracked down the noise, it was coming from under the lilac tree in the side yard. I parted the Shasta daisies and there, on the ground was a tiny baby squirrel. It was so young it didn't even have it's eyes open yet. I called my husband at work (he works about 4 blocks away)and said he had to come home, there was a dying baby squirrel in the yard. He said to fill up a bucket with water. He thought it was a goner and was going to drown it. Needless to say I did NOT fill a bucket. He came home and went out to look at it. Next thing I knew he came into the house with this tiny baby curled up in his hand, asleep. we got a box and put a towel in it. He took the squirrel to the local emergency Vet, but they were just going to put it to sleep, so he brought it back home and we started calling around to other Vet's. We found one, one town over that runs a rescue. We took it there. Over the course of the next two days, we had four more fall out of the same nest and we dutifully drove them over to the rescue at a rate of every few hours. We figure now we have good squirrel karma.

Awwww baby squirrels....

We have a couple of squirrels who try to leap at the window. There is a bar-like thing separating the top glass from the bottom part. IT's like they're trying to jump over and in. Of course they cant, but I hear them and sometimes see them take a leap at it. And we hear thumps like they're throwing themselves at the glass.

[Silver Raven]

My sister had a skunk come through her cat door.  They somehow managed to get it out without being sprayed.

[ari333]

5 minutes ago, Silver Raven said:

My sister had a skunk come through her cat door.  They somehow managed to get it out without being sprayed.

How did they get it out?

[Silver Raven]

They just shooed it out.

[frenchtoast]

Cute animal story. The only thing I've got is one of adopted greyhounds start to roo at us when it's time for bed. As in we're hanging out with no intention of going to bed, but he's ready, so everyone has to get upstairs. He'll start in the living room, we'll tell him to go upstairs and then he'll yell at us from upstairs.

[riley702]

They can be such bossy little things. Does he snuggle up with you? He's probably yelling, "Hey, you warm pillows! Get up here!"

[Jamoche]

I'm in a second-floor condo. There's a brick planter outside my window about 3 feet high, with the dirt level about a foot below its rim. Last year I heard this really astonishing sound like a drill going off. Thought the neighbors were doing construction until it got joined by peeping - mama duck had hatched her babies in the planter and was outside it calling them, but they couldn't jump high enough to get out. So I ferried baby ducks to the ground and off they went.

[Brattinella]

For a very sweet video, google "ducklings jumping from 50 ft". 

[mmecorday]

I thought when I moved out to the country, I'd see all kinds of wildlife. I saw more deer, possums and skunks when I lived inside the city limits. There are some menacing crows who gather every morning on the road beside my house. I call them the Night Watch.

[AuntiePam]

Loving these animal stories!

We feed orioles.  The feeder has orange halves and grape jelly and hangs about a foot off a branch.  The local squirrel will hang upside down, gripping the branch by his back feet so he can grab the orange. 

My worst roadkill experience -- driving home at night in a dense fog after seeing Hitchcock's The Birds, in a theater.  The fog was so bad that even the wildlife couldn't see where they were going.  I heard thumps for 15 miles as who-knows-what was run over and hit by my car.  The worst part was that I had to roll down the car window and stick my head out to find the center line.   I'd always been told that birds don't fly at night.  It's the only thing that saved me.

[peacheslatour]

O.k., one more animal story, this happened when I was still living at my parent's house:

One summer night, I guess it was around midnight, I was in my room talking to a good friend. He had just had a big fight with his parents and he'd walked over to my house and tapped on my bedroom door. (I had a door the opened into the garden) We are sitting there talking and we saw my mom's upstairs bedroom light go on (their house is U-shaped with a courtyard in the middle). I walked out into the entry hall and called up to my mom, asking if she was o.k. Just then something fluttered next to my face. I waved it away, thinking it was a moth. My mom asked me to come up and see if there was something in her room. I went up and she said she was sleeping and she felt something on her face. I looked out her door and there, clinging to the paneled wall, was a bat. I slammed the door shut and we sat there freaking out. I looked out the window to see my friend on the roof of the garage waving at me, with goofiest look on his face, I mouthed "go away" at him, but he didn't understand. Any way we decided to call the cops, figuring they were probably up anyway. When the cop car pulled into the driveway, my friend panicked, thinking my mother had called about a prowler and he jumped off the garage roof into the gully next to the house. You could hear branches crashing and breaking as he flew through the bushes. My mom goes "what was that?" and I say I don't know. Anyway, the cop is at the front door, but we won't leave the bedroom, because the bat was Right Out Side. I called down to him out the window and explained there was a way to break into the house through the French doors off the courtyard. I threw a towel down to him, he got in and opened all the doors and flapped the towel around and I guess he got it out because he left. 

I told my mom about my friend being there years later so I didn't get in trouble and to this day it's one of her favorite stories.

[AuntiePam]

peacheslatour, great story!  Confessing to our parents is a lot easier when we're thirty than when we were thirteen.

I don't mind bats and that's good, because I've had to deal with a lot of them.  It's usually just a matter of opening doors and windows so they can find their way out.  They're creepy though.  I blame Bram Stoker.

[janie jones]

Were there two bats?  The one that went by your face, and the one in your mom's room?

[Brattinella]

My turn!  We have what is called a "Florida Room".  It is quite a large room with lots of windows, and it is accessed by a sliding glass door from the interior of the house.  Our two cats (inside cats) were in there one evening, and hubby opened the door to feed the birds and squirrels, like he does every day.  Cracked corn and bird seed, mostly.  Well, this one night, as he opened the door, a sparrow flew inside.  Our cats were IMMEDIATELY perky, and then a feverish five minutes commenced!  I was so certain he would bash into one of the windows, or I would have to pry him out of someone's jaws.  Unbelievably, I was able to get this tiny bird out the back door with no bloodshed at all!  Very exhilirating!

[ari333]

14 minutes ago, Brattinella said:

My turn!  We have what is called a "Florida Room".  It is quite a large room with lots of windows, and it is accessed by a sliding glass door from the interior of the house.  Our two cats (inside cats) were in there one evening, and hubby opened the door to feed the birds and squirrels, like he does every day.  Cracked corn and bird seed, mostly.  Well, this one night, as he opened the door, a sparrow flew inside.  Our cats were IMMEDIATELY perky, and then a feverish five minutes commenced!  I was so certain he would bash into one of the windows, or I would have to pry him out of someone's jaws.  Unbelievably, I was able to get this tiny bird out the back door with no bloodshed at all!  Very exhilirating!

I'm a doofus. What is cracked corn and where do I get some?

Great bird story with a happy ending! :)

[Brattinella]

Lots of animals like cracked corn, you can get it at the feed store or hardware store.

[ari333]

4 minutes ago, Brattinella said:

Lots of animals like cracked corn, you can get it at the feed store or hardware store.

OK. Thanks. How is it different from people corn?  Is it expensive? TIA

[Prevailing Wind]

Jimmy cracked corn. I don't care.

[Brattinella]

19 minutes ago, ari333 said:

OK. Thanks. How is it different from people corn?  Is it expensive? TIA

It is also called field corn, and it is used for animal feed, and I think they make corn meal from it, too.  No, not expensive.

[Sandman87]

The animal stories are making me think of all the animal encounters I've had since moving to my current home 15 years ago:

- A possum that climbed up the dryer vent, ripped a hole in it, and was raiding the cats' food dish at night. You know those "grabbers" that they sell for people who have trouble picking stuff up from the floor? They're excellent for grabbing a possum around the neck so you can march it out the door while keeping its tail end under control with a gloved hand.

- A number of birds and a couple of bats have needed shooing out. I'm always oddly pleased to have to deal with the bats, because they confirm that my ears still work well enough to hear their chirps.

- A bat that "attacked" me at work one day. It got into the studio while I was there alone, and the first I knew of it was something hitting my leg. I looked down, and there was a Little Brown Bat (the actual species name) clinging to my pants leg. Sort of cute in an ugly kind of way. It hung on long enough for me to get my leg to the back door so that it (the bat, not my leg) could fly away.

- A horse that wandered up the steps to the kitchen deck to beg for food. I scrounged up an old carrot from the fridge and used that to lure it down off of the deck.

- An emu that came over to inspect my work one year while I was doing the spring weed-mowing. It spent about an hour examining the entire lot, then wandered away. And no, I don't live in Australia.

- A squirrel that used to perch on top of the utility pole next to my house and yell at me. Just establishing who's boss, I guess.

- Turkeys, Canada geese, quail, and ducks wandering the roads, going to and from the various ponds in the neighborhood. Also, buzzards eating the dead turkeys, geese, quail, and ducks that have been hit by cars.

- More distant encounters: Coyotes putting on concerts late at night. The occasional mountain lion wandering down the road. Deer all over the place. Skunks making their contributions to the ambiance. Dead rattlesnakes in the road.

In other words, it's like a friggin' zoo over here.

[peacheslatour]

4 hours ago, janie jones said:

Were there two bats?  The one that went by your face, and the one in your mom's room?

No, it was the same bat. It had flown down stairs. It was a speedy bat.

I'm sure the thing wanted out of there as bad as we wanted it gone. We were all sort of panicked.

[riley702]

Years ago, my little brother and his current wife were living out in the country. He'd get up at 0430 to start getting ready for work. One morning, he bent down to open the dresser drawer to get some socks, and something brown and furry popped out and darted across the room, scaring the shit out of him. It was a drafty old house and apparently a chipmunk had gotten inside. His wife calmly got a broom and a cardboard box, caught it, and tossed it outside. He kept going on about it, so she bought a resin replica of a chipmunk and tucked it in the drawer. He was NOT amused and she was not sympathetic (heh heh). One time she found some of those kid's fireworks we always called snap-strings. You'd pull the string on each end and the gunpowder in the middle would go bang. So she got busy taping the ends to things and booby-trapping the house. The next morning when he got up, he flipped up the toilet lid and *bang*. He opened the kitchen cabinet for a bowl and *bang*. He opened the drawer for a spoon and *bang*. Unfortunately, he never did develop a sense of humor, so that marriage didn't last. Pity. I liked her.

Edited October 31, 2016 by riley702

[Trini]

I was about to say that these animal stories are making thankful for my inner-city upbringing, but on the other hand, I had co-habit with roaches and mice in our apartment....

[ari333]

We live in a large city, but sort of on the edge. Last week I was driving and I saw a chicken crossing the road (no pun/joke intended) It was just taking its time and meandering across the road

Where we live there are many wooded areas and a creek and large grassy areas. We've seen deer, raccoons, brown bunnies, chipmunks, ducks, many squirrels and all colors and types of birds, including some frighteningly huge hawks and bats.

There is some cruel kid who throws rocks at the poor, little ducks. Sometimes I hate humans. I've seen the same cruel kid try to sneak up on the squirrels with a baseball bat while they're eating . Luckily they're too fast for him. That kid has future serial killer written all over him and I wont be surprised when he starts a fire at some point.  

[riley702]

I was going to suggest reporting him, but to whom? If his parents haven't figured out he's a little psycho by now, they're either clueless or psychos themselves.